JIM HOLSTUN
Department of English
306 Clemens Hall
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York 14260-4610
(716) 645-0672
jholstun@buffalo.edu
38 Lancaster Avenue
Buffalo, New York 14222-1402
(716) 884-0895
jamesholstun@hotmail.com
SCHOLARLY INTERESTS AND RESEARCH FOCUS
Old: early modern literature and history, utopia, marxism and class struggle
Current: neocolonialism and world literature, global communism and radicalism, Arab literature,
marxism and class struggle
New: Pre-twentieth-century African-American literature and history, world literature, marxism
and class struggle.
EDUCATION
1977
AB summa in English, minor in Classics, Georgetown University
1977-1980
Summer School of Criticism and Theory at the University of California, Irvine
(UCI)
1979
MA in English, UCI
1983
PhD in English, UCI. Thesis: “Puritan Utopias of the Interregnum.” Professors
Harold E. Toliver (Chair), Robert L. Montgomery, and John Carlos Rowe
POSITIONS HELD
1983-1985
Lecturer, Department of English, UCLA
1985-1986
Lecturer, Department of English, UCI
1986-1991
Assistant Professor of English, University of Vermont (UVM)
1991-2000
Associate Professor of English, SUNY at Buffalo (UB)
2000Professor of English, UB
HONORS AND AWARDS
1977-1980
University of California Regents Fellowship, graduate study at UCI and the School
of Criticism and Theory
1987, 1989
Summer Research Fellowships at UVM
1987
ACLS travel grant, Centre for Seventeenth-Century Studies at Durham University
1990-1991
NEH Fellowship
1994, Fall
Research Fellowship, SUNYAB
2001, Spring Research Fellowship, SUNYAB
2001
College of Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Teaching
2001
Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize for Ehud’s Dagger
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BOOKS
Author of A Rational Millennium: Puritan Utopias of Seventeenth-Century England and America.
New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1987. x + 371 pp.
Editor of Pamphlet Wars: Prose in the English Revolution. London: Frank Cass, 1992; a hardcover
reissue of Prose Studies 14.3 (1991). viii + 230 p.
Author of Ehud’s Dagger: Class Struggle in the English Revolution. London and New York: Verso,
2000 (hdbk.); 2002 (pbk). xx + 460 pp. Winner of Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial
Prize (2001).
ESSAYS AND CHAPTERS
“Tragic Superfluity in Coriolanus.” ELH 50.3 (1983): 485-507.
“John Eliot’s Empirical Millenarianism.” Representations 1.4 (1983): 128-53.
“Literary Criticism and Theory.” Ed. Toby Fulwiler and Arthur W. Biddle. Reading, Writing, and
the Study of Literature. New York: Random House, 1988. 71-92.
“‘Will you rent our ancient love asunder?’: Lesbian Elegy in Donne, Marvell, and Milton.” ELH
54.4 (1988): 835-67.
“Ranting at the New Historicism.” English Literary Renaissance 19.2 (1989): 189-226.
“Introduction” and “Rational Hunger: Gerrard Winstanley’s Hortus Inconclusus.” Prose Studies
14.3 (1991): 1-13, 158-204. Rpt. ed. James Holstun. Pamphlet Wars: Prose in the English
Revolution. London: Frank Cass, 1992: 1-13, 158-204.
"Ehud’s Dagger: Patronage, Tyrannicide, and Killing No Murder.” Cultural Critique 24 (1992): 99142.
“‘God bless thee, little David!’: John Felton and His Allies.” ELH 59.3 (1992): 513-52.
“Was Marx a Nineteenth-Century Winstanleyan? Communism, George Hill, and the Mir.” Prose
Studies 22.2 (1999): 121-48. Rpt. ed. Andrew Bradstock, Gerrard Winstanley and the
Diggers 1649-1999 (London: Frank Cass, 2000): 121-48.
“Damned Commotion: Riot and Rebellion in Shakespeare’s Histories.” Ed. Richard Dutton and
Jean Howard. A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume II: The Histories London:
Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 194-219.
“Pham Thai, Michael Sprinker, and John Holstun: Chemical Herbicide and the Indirect Costs of
Production.” Minnesota Review 58-60 (2003): 173-86.
“Brian Manning and the Dialectics of Revolt.” International Socialism Journal 103 (2003): 13548.
“The Spider, the Fly, and the Commonwealth: John Heywood and Agrarian Class Struggle.” ELH
71.1 (Spring 2004): 53-88.
“Comment: Historical Materialism and Early Modern Studies.” Early Modern Culture 4 (2004).
“The Giant’s Faction: Spenser, Heywood, and the Mid-Tudor Crisis.” Journal of Medieval and
Early Modern Studies 37.2 (2007): 335-71.
“Utopia Pre-Empted: Kett's Rebellion, Commoning, and the Hysterical Sublime.” Historical
Materialism 16.3 (2008): 3-53.
“Antigone Becomes Jocasta: Soha Bechara, Résistante, and Incendies.” Forthcoming in Mediations:
Journal of the Marxist Literary Group.
“‘Nasty, nasty’: Incest, Islamism, and History in Hadji Murat.” Forthcoming in Tolstoy Studies.
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LECTURES
“Exodus and Utopian Arithmetic: John Eliot’s The Christian Commonwealth.” Religion and
Literature. Philological Association of the Pacific Coast. University of Oregon. Nov. 1982.
“The Ranters: Literary History from Below.” Seventeenth-Century Studies Conference. Durham
University, England. July 1987.
“Ranting at the New Historicism.” Seventeenth-Century Studies Section. MLA Convention. San
Francisco. December 1987.
“Patronage and Tyrannicide: Edward Sexby’s Killing No Murder.” Conference on Politics,
Patronage and Literature, 1558-1658. University of Reading. Reading, England. July 1989.
Organizer and Moderator of a session entitled “Radical Rhetoric in the English Revolution.” MLA
Convention. Washington, D. C. December 1989.
“Bloch and Winstanley Are Not-Yet-Conscious.” Conference on the European Renaissance:
National Traditions. Glasgow University. Glasgow, Scotland. August 1990.
“‘God bless thee, little David!’: John Felton and His Allies.” New England Renaissance
Conference. Yale University. New Haven. November 1991.
“Bloch and Winstanley: Light from the Stomach.” Session on the Poor in Renaissance English
Literature. MLA Convention. San Francisco. December 1991.
“The Harp and the Cap: Revisionism and the United Irishmen.” Session on Irish Literature. MLA
Convention. Toronto. December 1993.
“The Public Spiritedness of Anna Trapnel.” Conference on Politics and Literature, 1558-1658.
University of Reading. Reading, England. July 1995.
“Late Marx and Early Modern Utopias.” Session on Marxism and Utopia. MLA Convention. San
Francisco. December 1998.
“George’s Hill and the Mir: Was Marx a Nineteenth-Century Winstanleyan?” Hearts and Spades: A
Conference Celebrating the Diggers at St. George’s Hill, 1649. Walton-on-Thames,
England. April 1999.
“‘A Monster Called Münster’: Class Struggle and the Great Fear of Early Modern Europe.”
Rethinking the Popular. University of Maryland, College Park. March 2000.
“Mike Sprinker, Chemical Herbicide, and the Mode of Production.” Seeds of Liberation: Sowing
Radical Ideas in Conservative Times. A Conference in Honor of Michael Sprinker. SUNY
Stony Brook. October 2000.
“Kett’s Rebellion, History from Below, and the Hysterical Sublime.” Syracuse University. October
2000.
“Diggers and Campmen: Early Modern Utopia and Agrarian Class Struggle.” Tufts University.
March 2001.
“Brian Manning and the Dialectics of Revolt.” A paper delivered at a conference entitled “Making
Social Movements: The British Marxist historians and the study of Social Movements.”
Edge Hill College of Higher Education, England, 26-28 June 2002
“Agnes Smedley in China: The Other Globalization.” The Deutscher Memorial Lecture, London,
November 19, 2002.
“The Struggle for Gender Equity at the University of Buffalo 1969-2009: Ann Scott and ‘The HalfEaten Apple.’” Conference on Succeeding as Women in Higher Education. SUNY Cortland.
1 Oct. 2009.
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“The White Highlands and the National Bourgeoisie: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Vernacular Socialist.” A
talk given at the Institute for Comparative Modernities, Cornell University, April 5, 2011.
http://www.icm.arts.cornell.edu/holstun_2011.html.
REVIEWS
Reflections on the Hero as Quixote, by Alexander Welsh. Ariel 13.1 (1981): 80-82.
Dada Spectrum: The Dialectics of Revolt, ed. Stephen Foster and Rudolph Kuenzli. The Journal of
European Studies 11 (1981): 144-46.
Puritan Legacies, by Keith Stavely. The William and Mary Quarterly 3.45.4 (1988): 791-93.
One Flesh: Paradisial Marriage and Sexual Relations in the Age of Milton, by James Grantham
Turner. Seventeenth-Century News 46.4 (1988): 72-73.
Dragons Teeth: Literature in the English Revolution, by Michael Wilding. Seventeenth-Century
News 47.1+2 (1989): 1-3.
The Utopian Function of Art and Literature, by Ernst Bloch. The German Quarterly 63.2 (1990):
290-92.
Review essay on The Blessed Revolution: English Politics and the Coming of War, 1621-1624, by
Thomas Cogswell; Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics, 16021642, ed. Richard Cust and Ann Hughes; and Reviving the English Revolution: Reflections
and Elaborations on the Work of Christopher Hill, ed. Geoff Eley and William Hunt.
Seventeenth-Century News, 39.1-2 (1991): 1-4.
Perfection Proclaimed: Language and Literature in English Radical Religion, 1640-1660, by Nigel
Smith. Seventeenth-Century News, 39.1-2 (1991): 4-5.
Literature and the English Civil War, ed. Thomas Healy and Jonathan Sawday. JEGP 92.1 (1992):
129-31.
LETTER
Response to Stanley Fish. PMLA 104.2 (1989): 217.
JOURNALISM
“Lackawanna Mosque Watch.” Buffalo Report 1 Feb. 2003.
Introductory note to Ari Shavit “Survival of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris.”
CounterPunch 16 Jan. 2004.
“Nonie Darwish and the al-Bureij massacre.” The Electronic Intifada 26 June 2008..
With Joanna Tinker. “Israel’s fabricated rocket crisis.” The Electronic Intifada 6 Jan. 2009
“Tony Blair and the business of covering up war crimes.” The Electronic Intifada, 14 Oct. 2009.
With Irene Morrison. “‘We will have to kill them all’: Effie Eitam, thug messiah.” The Electronic
Intifada, 25 Nov. 2009.
“Buffalo’s Muslim Junior G-Men.” Ikhras ‫اخرس‬, May 16, 2011.
“Fracking Funnies.” Artvoice 11.29 (19 July 2012).
“Huck and Jim vs. Herzl and Morris: Mark Twain on Zionism and the First Aliyah.”
Mondoweiss 9 Jan. 2014.
WORK IN PROGRESS
“Modernism, Realism, and Imperial Capitalism, 1852-2012” Book-length study of the
persistence and resurgence of literary realism in a global context, and its role in anticapitalist and anti-imperialist struggle.
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“‘Mr. Kayerts. He Is Dead’: ‘Outpost of Progress,’ Heart of Darkness, and Conrad’s Bad Faith.”
13,000-word essay under consideration.
“Shoot and Cry: Realism, Modernism, and the Iraq War Fiction of Justin Sirois and Kevin
Powers.” 11,000 word essay under consideration.
“Agnes Smedley in China.” Drafted as an oral presentation; essay planned.
“The Cave and the Checkpoint: Magical and Critical Realism Khoury and Khalifeh.” Drafted as an
oral presentation; book chapter planned.
“The White Highlands and the National Bourgeoisie: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Vernacular Socialist.”
Drafted as an oral presentation; book chapter planned
“James Monroe Whitfield and the Fugitive Slave Law in Buffalo.” Begun; essay planned.
EDITORSHIPS
1987-1991
Editorial Board, Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
1988-1998
Associate Editor, Seventeenth-Century News
2003Editorial Board, Early Modern Culture
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
African Literature (UB), 1
American Pluralism (UB), 2
Arab women writers (UB), 2
Arabic novel in translation (UB), 4
British and American survey 1 (UVM), 2
Buckham honors seminar in the new historicism (UVM, with Stephen Greenblatt)
Colonial American literature (UCLA)
Criticism: Christopher Marlowe (UB), 2
Criticism: Conrad and Salih (UB)
Criticism: Conrad, Salih, and El Saadawi (UB)
Criticism: Khalifeh and Conrad (UB)
Criticism: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (UB)
Criticism: Poe (UB), 2
Criticism: Renaissance pastoral and georgic (UB), 2
Criticism: Renaissance poetry (UB)
Criticism: Zola and Sembène (UB)
Earlier seventeenth-century English literature (UVM, UB), 5
Elizabethan and Jacobean drama (UB)
English literature in the 1790s (UB)
Epic and lyric poetry UCI), 3
Freshman writing and sophomore writing (UCI, UCLA, UVM), 15
Hamlet and revenge tragedy (UB)
History, writing, and culture in western New York (UB), 2
Humanities core course (UCI), 6
Introduction to literary theory (UVM, UB), 4
Introduction to literature (UCLA), 8
Iraq and the American Wars (UB)
Irish literature (UB)
Israeli and Palestinian Culture (UB)
Holstun 6
Literature and same-sex culture in pre-modern Europe (UB), 2
Literature of the western tradition (UVM), 2
Milton (UCLA, UVM, UB), 20
Modern European Novel (UB)
Nineteenth-Century African-American Literature (UB)
Palestinian literature and culture (UB), 2
Proletarian epic (UB), 3
Radical American novel (UB)
Seventeenth-century Anglo-American women writers (UB), 3
Shakespeare, earlier Plays (UB), 2
Sixteenth-century English literature (UVM, UB), 4
Slave rebellions and maroon wars (UB), 2
Spenser (UB)
The utopian novel (UB)
Tragedy and comedy (UCI), 4
World literature (UVM, UB), 5
Writing across the disciplines (UCI), 2
GRADUATE COURSES
Africa, marxism, and resistance literature (UB)
Arab women writers (UB)
Beauvoir, Fanon, and Sartre (UB)
Commonwealth: writing and class struggle in Tudor England (UB)
Early modern English and American women’s writing (UB), 2
Feminism and marxism (UB)
Global Realism (UB)
Israeli and Palestinian Culture (UB)
Marxism (UB), 3
Milton (UVM)
Ngũgĩ and neocolonialism (UB)
Nineteenth-Century Afro-American literature *UB)
Palestinian literature and culture (UB)
Postmodernism and the radical Atlantic world (UB)
Print and praxis in the English public sphere, 1603-1660 (UB)
Spenser (UB)
Young Milton and the republic (UB)
UNDERGRADUATE HONORS THESES AND DIRECTED READINGS
Athira Unni (S2014, F2014)
Alex Wong (McNair Scholar; Summer and F2014; English Honors in S2015)
Amy Baumes (S93)
Ana Owusu (S97)
Charles Lesh (F09)
Colleen Kennedy (S02)
Dennis Harlow (S02)
Dina Kuzminer (S97)
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Donna Steinberg (S96)
Erin Willis (S12)
Jenna Lay (F01)
Julie Rubaud (NEH Younger Scholars Fellowship; S90)
Lauren Carmer (F09)
Luc Barton (F10)
Meghan Fadel (F04)
Paul Feigenbaum (F96)
Philip Reeves (F08)
Rachel Kempster (F96)
Romulus Fundeanu (S02)
Sara Rubinstein (S97)
Susan Houriet (reader; S88)
Thawab Shibly (F11)
MASTER’S THESES
Ann Benvenuto (director, S88)
Anne-Marie Schuler (director S2003)
Donna Steinberg (director, S2000)
Eve Raimon (director, S88)
Irene Morrison (director, F10)
Jennifer Roth (director, 2003)
Julia Miller (reader, F89)
Kate Hutchinson (director, S09; replaced later)
Kristen Angierski (director, 2014)
Lauren Carmer (director, 2014)
Matt Durkin (S09)
Shevaun Donelli (F05)
PH.D. ORALS COMMITTEES AND OTHER DIRECTED READINGS (* = current)
*Jennifer Dickson (S15)
Ajitpaul Mangat (S13)
Catherine Gray (F96, S97)
Cathy Lubie (S98)
Chad Groenhaut (F2004)
Christopher Alexander (S00)
Christopher Barnes (F94, S95)
Chung Hwan Joe (S12)
Dan Moos (F96, S97)
Elyssa Cheng (S00, F00)
Gail Brisson (F91)
Guy Witzel (F09)
Iclal Cetin, chair (F2000, S2001)
Jaecheol Kim (S09)
James O’Loughlin (F94, S95)
Jeonghee Sohn (F95, S96)
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Joel Goldbach (F09)
Joewon Yoon (F95, S96)
Jongwoo Park (S08)
Jung-suk Hwang, chair (F11, S12)
Kang Kim (F93, S96)
Kristina Lucenko, chair (S06)
Laurie Ousley (F99)
Mark Rapp (F91)
Matt Garite (F06)
Maya Mathur, chair (F2003, S2004)
Michael King (F01)
Michael Rozendal (F00)
Michelle Burnham (S92)
Morani Kornberg-Weiss, chair (F11, S12)
Myungho Lee (S96, F96)
Nicole Lucey (Romance Languages)
Prabha Manuratne, chair (S12, S13)
Prasanta Chakravarty (S00)
Rachel Greenberg, chair (S2003)
Ryuichiro Miyanaga, chair (F12, S13, F13)
Sarah Hogan, chair (F06)
Scott Oldenburg, chair (S2003)
Seokwon Yang (F92, S93)
Sodam Choi (S09)
Sonya Brockman, chair (F07)
Steven Zultanski (F09)
Sungho Kim (S96, F96)
Yoonha Shin, chair (F12, S13, F13)
DISSERTATION COMMITTEES (* = current)
*Chung-Hwan Joe
*Joe Hall
*Joel Goldbach
*Jung-suk Hwang, chair
*Matt Durkin (Duquesne University)
*Morani Kornberg-Weiss, chair
*Nicole Bojko (UB Romance Languages)
*Prabha Manuratne, chair
*Ryuichiro Miyanaga
*Sodam Choi
Alan Gilbert, chair (Ph.D. 1997)
Asli Degirmenci, chair (Ph.D. 2013)
Catharine Gray, chair (Ph.D. 2001)
Christopher Barnes (Ph.D.2002)
Guy Witzel
Iclal Cetin, chair (Ph.D. 2005)
Holstun 9
J. Christopher Senden (Ph.D.2003)
Jaecheol Kim (Ph.D. 2011)
James O’Loughlin (Ph.D. 1998)
Jeonghee Sohn (Ph.D.1999)
Joewon Yoon (Ph.D. 2001)
Joseph Brennan (Ph.D. 1995)
Julia Miller (Ph.D.1998)
Kang Kim (Ph.D. 1997)
Katharine Walke Gillespie, chair (Ph.D. 1996)
Kristina Lucenko, chair (Ph.D. 2009)
Lewis Daly, chair (Ph.D.1996)
Mark Frankel, chair (Ph.D. 2001)
Matt Garite (Ph.D. 2012)
Maya Mathur, chair (Ph.D. 2006)
Minna Niemi, chair (Ph.D. 2011)
Paul Gleed (Ph.D. 2007)
Paul Rosa (SUNY Stony Brook) (Ph.D. )
Rachel Greenberg, chair (Ph.D. 2007)
Sami Hanna (UB, Foreign and Second Language Education)
Sarah Hogan, chair (Ph.D. 2010)
Scott Oldenburg, chair (Ph.D. 2007)
Seokwon Yang (Ph.D. 1995)
Simon Joyce (Ph.D. 1993)
Sonya Brockman, chair (Ph.D. 2013)
Steven Zultanski
Sungho Kim (Ph.D.2000)
Tracey Sedinger (Ph.D. 1995)
Victoria Tillotson (Ph.D. 2000)
Zubeda Jalalzai (Ph.D. 2000)
SERVICE AT UNIVERSITIES
1986-1987
Colloquium Committee (UVM)
1986-1988
Undergraduate Studies Committee
1986-1990
Departmental Representative to the Faculty Senate
1987-1990
Organizer, Faculty and Graduate Student Literary Theory Reading Group
1987-1988
Search Committee
1987-1991
Buckham Committee
1987-1989
Graduate Director
1988-1991
Organizer and Coordinator, Humanities Graduate Seminars
1990-1991
Organizing Committee for a Faculty Union at the University of Vermont NEA)
1992-1994
Graduate Placement Committee (UB)
1993-1998
Planning Committee
1995
Undergraduate Studies Director
1995-1996
Graduate Placement Director
1995-1997
Faculty Senator, Alternate
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1995-1997
1997
1997-2001
1998-1999
19991999
1999-2001
2000-2001
2004
2004-2005
2006
2006
2006-2010
2007-2008
2008
2010
2011
2013
2013
2014
2014
201420142014-2015
20142015
Chapter Board and Departmental Delegate, SUNY/Buffalo Chapter of United
University Professions (UUP; affiliated with NYSUT/AFT)
Vice President for Academics, Chapter Board, and Department Delegate, Crisis
Mobilization Committee, UB UUP
Faculty Senator
English Department Executive Committee
Faculty Senator
Faculty Senate Executive Committee
Graduate Placement Director
Early Modern Search Committee
Internal Tenure and Promotion Review Committee for Professor Carine
Mardorossian
Irish Studies Search Committee, Chair
Internal Evaluator for Hire of Professor Jerold C. Frakes
Internal Tenure and Promotion Committee for Professor Andrew Stott
Sweatfree Apparel Committee
Senior Global Literature and Culture Search Committee, Chair
Internal Tenure and Promotion Review Committee for Professor Scott Stevens
Internal Tenure and Promotion Review Committee for Professor Randy Schiff
Internal Promotion Review Committee for Professor Graham Hammill
Literature Course Review Committee
Faculty Senator
Literature Course Review Committee
Four-year Internal Review for Professor Walter Hakala.
Faculty Senator
Member, Faculty Senate Standing Committee on Faculty Promotion, Tenure, and
Privileges.
English Department Representative, Faculty Senate
Member, Faculty Senate Standing Committee on Faculty Tenure, Promotion, and
Privileges.
Member, UB-UUP union Chapter Board.
SERVICE, PROFESSION AT LARGE
1986-91
Reader for articles submitted to Historical Reflections
1989-96
Reader for articles submitted to Seventeenth-Century News
1993
Reader for article submitted to Prose Studies
1993
Referee for promotion at Yale University
1994
Reader for article submitted to Mosaic.
1994
Referee for promotion and tenure, Dartmouth College
1994
Referee for promotion and tenure, University of Rochester
1994
Referee for junior review, Northeastern University
1995
Referee for promotion and tenure, Southern Illinois State University at Carbondale
1996
Referee for promotion and tenure, Tufts University
1996
Referee for promotion and tenure, Northeastern University
1997
Referee for senior hire, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
1997
Reader for book manuscript, Athlone Press
Holstun 11
1997
2000
2000
2003
2004
2005
2005
2005
2005
2006
2013
2013
2014
2014
Reader for article submitted to Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Referee for promotion, King Alfred’s College, UK
Reader for book manuscript, St. Martin’s Press
Referee for article manuscript, Historical Materialism
Referee for article manuscript, Renaissance Quarterly
Referee for article manuscript, Criticism
Referee for article manuscript, Literature Compass
Referee for tenure and promotion, University of Florida
Referee for promotion, Loyola University of Chicago
Referee for NEH fellowship.
Referee for Clio.
Referee for Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies.
Referee for Mediations
Referee for promotion to full professor, Lancaster University, Dept. of English